The demolition of a 115-year-old house at 329 W. Sixth St. has changed the landscape of Erie's Millionaires' Row, upsetting the Erie County Historical Society despite the property owner's pledge to install a large decorative garden in the newly vacant space.

"We are not going to build any new walls," said Erie neurosurgeon William Paul Diefenbach, who, with his wife, has owned the property for four years. "We are pretty much going to turn that lot into a turn-of-the-century English garden."

Crews with Lipchik Demolition, which Diefenbach hired, over the weekend razed the house at 329 W. Sixth St., which sits on two-tenths of an acre just west of Myrtle Street. It was built in 1898 and is next to Diefenbach's residence, a historic home at 323 W. Sixth St., which was built in 1904 and where Diefenbach and his family have lived since 1993.

The house at 329 W. Sixth St. -- it had been vacant but had housed law offices for years -- is part of the West Sixth Street Historic District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

The designation, however, does not protect the individual buildings, said Caleb Pifer, executive director of the Erie County Historical Society.

He said he wanted the house at 329 W. Sixth St. to remain standing to preserve the integrity of Millionaires' Row, the six-block stretch of West Sixth Street that features some of the city's oldest and most ornate homes. They include the Historical Society's showpiece, the Watson-Curtze Mansion, at 356 W. Sixth St., across from what had been the house at 329 W. Sixth St.

Pifer said that residence was known as the Andrew McMullen House, after its first owner, a physician who was also part proprietor of the Erie Burial Case Co., which at one time made more than 4,000 caskets a year. The Historical Society considers the house an example of the Georgian Revival style of architecture.

With the demolition, "instead of seeing a row of historic homes, you will see a vacant lot," Pifer said.

He said the Diefenbachs were "certainly well within their legal right to do what they wanted to do." But owners of historic properties, he said, "have a moral responsibility to the community not to have a demolition as your first option."

The Historical Society worked on a deal to try to have Diefenbach donate the house at 329 W. Sixth St. to the Historical Society in exchange for a tax deduction, Diefenbach and Pifer said. The Historical Society then wanted to have another owner take control of the house and renovate it, Pifer said.

The deal never happened.

Diefenbach and his wife, Tracey, bought the house at 329 W. Sixth St. for $78,800 at a sheriff sale in October 2009, after a bank foreclosed on the previous owner. William Paul Diefenbach said they made the purchase because the house was next door to their residence, and considered renovating their new property until the costs proved too high.

Diefenbach said he spent about $300,000 renovating his house, at 323 W. Sixth St., and is committed to historic preservation -- when financially possible.

"The house was just too dilapidated and neglected for the past seven to 10 years," Diefenbach said of the house at 329 W. Sixth St., which had been assessed at $101,800. "It was in no shape for renovations. It had no inherent charm, either."

He said he and his wife are looking forward to filling the space with flowers and other attractive plants.

"The plan is not to put up some ugly structure," Diefenbach said. "We think having a garden there will be much more pleasing to the eye."

ED PALATTELLA can be reached at 870-1813 or by e-mail. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNpalattella.